Mo Farah is shocking: He was the victim of a minor trafficking ring from Africa

The Olympic champion and world champion Mo Fara transferred to Britain from Djibouti at the age of nine and was forced to do housework and childcare in exchange for foodas he revealed to the BBC.

The 39-year-old Briton, who was born in Somalia, added that his name had been changed to Mohamed Farah from Hussein Abdi Kahin on fake travel documents that brought him to Britain with a woman he had never met before.

Once he arrived in the UK, the woman took him to her home in Hounslow, west London, and he tore up a piece of paper with his relatives’ contact information. Her family did not allow him to go to school until the age of 12.

“For years I kept pushing those thoughts away, but you can only block it out for a while”he said in the BBC documentary, which will be broadcast this week.

“I often locked myself in the bathroom and cried. The only thing I could do to get out of this situation was to get out and run.”

His PE teacher, Alan Watkinson, contacted social services and helped him find a foster family in the Somali community after Farah told him what he was going through.

“I felt like a big weight was lifted off my shoulders, I felt like I was finding myself again. That’s when Mo came out – the real Mo”Farah said. “I had no idea there were so many people going through the exact same thing I did. It just goes to show how lucky I was. What really saved me, what made me different, was that I could run.”

He even said in May his career on the elite track could have been over after he finished runner-up in the London 10,000m and ruled out taking part in this month’s World Championships.

Farah, who completed a double double of 5,000m and 10,000m at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, will however run a marathon for the first time since 2019 when he takes part in the London Marathon in October.

Source: The daily

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